Latest news with #healthfunding
Bloomberg
a day ago
- Health
- Bloomberg
Africa Battles to Halt Cholera Cases as Funding Cuts Hurt
Health-funding cuts are wreaking havoc on many African countries' ability to gain control diseases such as cholera, according to the continent's main health-advisory body. Financial aid provided by governments of wealthier countries to developing nations to improve health outcomes had already dropped by about 70% between 2021 and 2025, Ngashi Ngongo, a principal adviser at Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a briefing Thursday.
Daily Mail
11-06-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Please Rachel, may we have some more? Reeves pours £29billion more into struggling NHS every year - but bosses complain it STILL isn't enough
Rachel Reeves confirmed she will spend almost £30billion a year more on the NHS to help get the country back on track - and bosses immediately said it was not enough. The Chancellor made the health service one of the big winners in her spending review with a 3 per cent annual uplift taking its funding to £226billion by 2028-29. But Health Service leaders warned that they could still not guarantee waiting times targets can be met. The Spending Review forces departments to fund pay increases out of their settlement, but doctors are considering strike action, with unions demanding astronomical pay rises. Earlier this month resident doctors - formerly junior doctors - warned they could launch co-ordinated industrial action with consultants and specialist doctors, if the groups vote to strike, in a move that would be 'immensely disruptive for patient care'. The physicians formerly known as junior doctors are being balloted in England for strike action that could last for six months by the British Medical Association (BMA) following criticism of the Government's recent pay rise offer of an average 5.4 per cent rise for resident doctors. Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents all health organisations, said the funding boost was welcome, 'given the precarious state of public finances and will help the NHS to cope with rising demand from an ageing population, often with multiple or more complex physical and mental health conditions'. But he warned that 'difficult decisions will still need to be made as this additional £29 billion won't be enough to cover the increasing cost of new treatments, with staff pay likely to account for a large proportion of it'. 'So on its own this won't guarantee that waiting time targets are met,' he said. The Chancellor defended the Government's record on the NHS since coming into office, including 1,700 new GPs, 3.5 million more appointments and cutting waiting lists by 200,000. The cash injection, widely trailed, came after Sir Keir Starmer pledged to ensure that by the next election 92 per cent of patients in England waiting for planned treatment will be seen within 18 weeks of being referred. She said the Government was spending £10 billion on more digitising services as part of the Government's 10-year plan for the health service. But the scale of the spending on the NHS in England – increasing to £226 billion by 2028-29, means squeezing other areas of public expenditure. Latest NHS data suggests around 60 per cent of people are currently seen in this time and figures released last month showed the overall number of patients on waiting lists had risen slightly from 6.24 million to 6.25 million. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper welcomed investment in the NHS, but said it needed reform of social care alongside it to work properly. She told the Commons: 'The Chancellor knows, the Health and Social Care Secretary knows, this whole Parliament knows that today's investment in the NHS will be like pouring water into a leaky bucket if hospitals cannot discharge patients who are well enough to leave because there aren't the care workers to help them recover at home.' The NHS was a major winner from Ms Reeves's first Budget last October, when the Chancellor poured £22.6billion more into the flatlining health service. At the time Health Secretary Wes Streeting was brutally clear that this may not be enough, because the NHS is 'not just on its knees, it's on its face'. Todasy Ms Reeves faced MPs and said: 'This Labour Government is making a record cash investment in our NHS, increasing real-terms, day-to-day spending by 3 per cent per year for every year of this spending review. 'An extra £29 billion per year for the day-to-day running of the health service. 'That is what the British people voted for and that is what we will deliver. More appointments. More doctors. More scanners.' Daniel Elkeles, chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents NHS trusts, said: 'NHS trust leaders aren't taking the additional funding for granted. Far from it. 'They know patients, taxpayers and ministers will rightly demand more bang for their buck from the NHS through shorter waiting times and better services.' However, he said with tough targets to improve access to care right now plus a big maintenance backlog, 'trust leaders will ask whether the funding announced today enables the NHS to deliver everything being asked of it. We need to have an honest conversation about what the NHS can deliver now and in the future.'
CBS News
10-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
HHS budget proposal eliminates CDC's chronic disease, global health centers in favor of new "MAHA" agency
The Department of Health and Human Services' budget request for the 2026 fiscal year consolidates the department's 28 divisions to 15 to make way for a new "institution of public health." The new agency, the Administration for a Healthy America, has a $20.6 billion budget designed to support Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" agenda. That includes taking over — and significantly reducing — funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's chronic disease and global health centers along with some of the institutes that are currently part of the National Institutes of Health. The Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, says it will take a "root cause" approach to chronic disease prevention, according to the agency's budget request, released last Friday. But the budget proposes cutting funding for all programs in the CDC's chronic disease center and would make significant cuts to existing primary care, mental health and environmental health programs. The cuts slash the CDC's budget from nearly $9.2 billion in FY 2024 to $4.2 billion. At least 20%, or $1 billion, of the funding cut is moving to AHA. The cuts will have a trickle-down effect on states and cities. The vast majority of CDC funding is discretionary and funneled to state and local health departments. Last year, these departments received $4.5 billion of CDC funding to "promote and protect health in their communities." And even where funds are maintained, the restructuring could come at a cost, according to Richard Frank, director of the Center on Health Policy at the Brookings Institution. "The CDC has over the years developed a lot of human capital," Frank said. The agency's infectious disease response, involving surveillance and expert teams sent to the source of an outbreak, is "not something you learn overnight that you can just move around easily without disrupting how effective it is." The budget request also cuts the NIH by about 40% and dissolves agencies including the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Health Resources Service Administration. "The Budget reflects needed reforms to put health care spending on a sustainable fiscal path and proposes policies to Make America Healthy Again," HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard wrote in a statement to CBS News. "The United States remains the sickest developed nation despite spending $4.5 trillion annually on health care, resulting in an exploding debt that poses a critical threat to our country along with worsening health outcomes." Kennedy has repeatedly decried the "childhood chronic disease crisis" in America. That was a central focus of his "Make America Healthy Again" commission report. The report has been criticized for citing studies that do not exist, including false information and omitting established drivers of chronic disease in children that health authorities are already working to address. Chronic disease prevention The latest budget request would eliminate the CDC's Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, for which $1.4 billion was appropriated in FY 2024. Instead, AHA would fund primary care, environmental health, mental health and nutrition programs. This, according to the department, would prevent chronic disease from the source, rather than fund individual programs on cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other diseases as the CDC's chronic disease center did. Nearly 70 organizations, including the American Heart Association and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, signed a letter to leaders of the House and Senate appropriations committees in mid-May, after an earlier version of the budget was leaked. They expressed their opposition to the budget's elimination of the CDC's chronic disease center. The programs in the center "work with states and territories to prevent disease, detect it early, and manage it effectively," said the letter. Eliminating them "would destabilize public health systems at every level and jeopardize decades of progress." Global health The FY 2026 budget request eliminates the CDC's Global Health Center, and instead allocates $239 million toward global health protection, under the CDC's broader "CDC-Wide Activities" budget line. The Global Health Center spent $711 million in FY 2024. Defunding the center comes alongside the Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and withdrawal from the World Health Organization. These actions will have consequences for Americans in addition to those abroad, said Janeen Madan Keller, deputy director of the Global Health Policy Program at the Center for Global Development, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. "From our own experience with epidemics and pandemics, we know that infectious diseases do not respect borders," Keller said. "It's really important that we have the ability to stop these outbreaks in their tracks before they reach our border." Other programs AHA consolidates federal HIV/AIDS prevention and research. It cuts $794 million of the CDC's funding for domestic HIV/AIDS prevention and takes over HIV/AIDS programs from other agencies. In total, AHA allocates a combined $2.7 billion to the virus and resulting disease — almost $1 billion less than those programs were appropriated in FY 2024. Other centers moved from the CDC include its centers for Birth Defects, Developmental Disabilities, Disability and Health, Injury Prevention and Control, and Occupational Safety and Health. Some of the funding from these centers has been moved to broader programs within AHA, according to the budget proposal. Before the budget is passed, it will be reviewed by congressional subcommittees before the House and Senate prepare their own budget resolutions later this year.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Embrace private healthcare to fix the NHS, says former Boots boss
The former boss of Boots has urged the Government to embrace private medical care to fix the NHS, as he backed plans to inject tens of billions of pounds into the struggling health service. Sebastian James, the former Bullingdon Club member who endorsed Labour last year, said Rachel Reeves is right to propose a £30bn funding boost for the NHS as part of her upcoming spending review. However, he urged ministers to use the cash to 'grasp the nettle of private provision', as he said that easing pressure on cash-strapped NHS hospitals was key to reducing waiting lists. Mr James is already working with the NHS to help outsource cataract surgeries as the chief executive of European eye clinic chain Veonet, which runs the SpaMedica business in the UK. But he said Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, must go further and faster on working with the private sector after waiting lists recently rose for the first time in seven months. The backlog now stands at 7.42m, according to data released for the end of March. 'We need radical change that can be achieved by releasing a measurable sum of money,' Mr James, the son of the hereditary peer the 5th Baron Northbourne, told The Telegraph. 'We need a more commercial approach. We have to grasp the nettle of private provision. We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient.' The suggestion echoes ideas put forward by Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader. He has called for the NHS to buy millions more appointments from the independent sector to help address waiting lists, claiming it could help to clear the appointment backlog within two years. This would go further than the Government's current pledge to offer up to a million extra appointments in private hospitals. Yet such ideas are controversial as they will stoke fears of creeping privatisation of the NHS and raise concerns about potential profiteering. Mr James said: 'There are questions about private companies making money. But it's all about how do you square that? 'There are two key things. One, it will still be free at the point of use. And two, the price will be cheaper than what is offered by the public healthcare system.' Mr James has already held talks with Whitehall officials about his plans for the NHS and he said the Chancellor is right to unleash a significant one-off sum. 'You should borrow to pay for it,' said Mr James, suggesting that £20bn or £30bn would barely move the dial when it comes to the country's £2.8 trillion debt pile. However, it comes at a time when the Chancellor is already facing a struggle to balance the books. Ms Reeves will this week deliver her spending review, which is widely expected to unlock an extra £30bn for the NHS over a three-year period. That will be at the expense of other public services, as she is also plotting real-terms cuts to day-to-day spending across many Whitehall departments. Such pressures have emerged because of the Chancellor's fiscal rules, which prevent her from borrowing to fund day-day-day spending. However, Mr James believes that borrowing to fix the waiting list crisis would do far greater good than harm. He said that SpaMedica's role in providing eye services for the NHS should be a blueprint for ministers to work from, as the company claims to have helped cut waiting times for cataract surgery from 18 months to two weeks since Covid. It now provides around 70pc of eye care referrals from the NHS, and last year helped to restore the sight of around 200,000 patients. While it has helped to cut waiting times, SpaMedica is one of many private cataract clinics facing claims of profiteering after they allegedly inflated costs for procedures. A leaked document from the Health Department, first reported by The Sunday Times, alleged that SpaMedica classed its patients as 'higher complexity', which led to procedures being more expensive than they needed to be. Campaigners point to the fact that SpaMedica's profits rose from £63.9m to £71.8m in its last financial year, which they say is proof of the company taking the taxpayer for a ride. SpaMedica has denied any wrongdoing. However, such allegations reflect the fierce debate surrounding privatisation of the NHS, with many households uncomfortable with the prospect of independent providers making a profit while providing medical services, even if they are free for patients. Mr James, who ran Boots from 2018 to 2024, is adamant that ministers must ignore such complaints if they are to have any hope of reducing waiting lists. 'We have cut waiting times down from 18 months to two to three weeks,' said Mr James. 'We have eaten away our waiting list.' This is particularly key for Sir Keir Starmer, who has pledged that 92pc of NHS patients will get an appointment within 18 weeks by the end of the current parliament in 2029. Ultimately, Mr James argues that private healthcare must be embraced because it is far more efficient than the NHS. He said that SpaMedica clinics carry out more than 20 cataract surgeries a day, which is almost double that of NHS hospitals. The fees are also cheaper, he said, as each cataract operation costs SpaMedica £980, compared to around £1,400 on the NHS. 'We've shown that we can do it in our industry, but we need to broaden it out,' he said. 'We could take it area by area, whether that be knee replacements or treating melanomas. 'By working with private healthcare providers, the solution is to save the NHS money. 'We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient. We're not talking about eradicating the NHS, it's about a partnership.' 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Telegraph
09-06-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Embrace private healthcare to save the NHS, former Boots boss urges Labour
The former boss of Boots has urged the Government to embrace private medical care to fix the NHS, as he backed plans to inject tens of billions of pounds into the struggling health service. Sebastian James, the former Bullingdon Club member who endorsed Labour last year, said Rachel Reeves is right to propose a £30bn funding boost for the NHS as part of her upcoming spending review. However, he urged ministers to use the cash to 'grasp the nettle of private provision', as he said that easing pressure on cash-strapped NHS hospitals was key to reducing waiting lists. Mr James is already working with the NHS to help outsource cataract surgeries as the chief executive of European eye clinic chain Veonet, which runs the SpaMedica business in the UK. But he said Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, must go further and faster on working with the private sector after waiting lists recently rose for the first time in seven months. The backlog now stands at 7.42m, according to data released for the end of March. 'We need radical change that can be achieved by releasing a measurable sum of money,' Mr James, the son of the hereditary peer the 5th Baron Northbourne, told The Telegraph. 'We need a more commercial approach. We have to grasp the nettle of private provision. We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient.' Borrowing for the greater good The suggestion echoes ideas put forward by Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader. He has called for the NHS to buy millions more appointments from the independent sector to help address waiting lists, claiming it could help to clear the appointment backlog within two years. This would go further than the Government's current pledge to offer up to a million extra appointments in private hospitals. Yet such ideas are controversial as they will stoke fears of creeping privatisation of the NHS and raise concerns about potential profiteering. Mr James said: 'There are questions about private companies making money. But it's all about how do you square that? 'There are two key things. One, it will still be free at the point of use. And two, the price will be cheaper than what is offered by the public healthcare system.' Mr James has already held talks with Whitehall officials about his plans for the NHS and he said the Chancellor is right to unleash a significant one-off sum. 'You should borrow to pay for it,' said Mr James, suggesting that £20bn or £30bn would barely move the dial when it comes to the country's £2.8 trillion debt pile. However, it comes at a time when the Chancellor is already facing a struggle to balance the books. Ms Reeves will this week deliver her spending review, which is widely expected to unlock an extra £30bn for the NHS over a three-year period. That will be at the expense of other public services, as she is also plotting real-terms cuts to day-to-day spending across many Whitehall departments. Such pressures have emerged because of the Chancellor's fiscal rules, which prevent her from borrowing to fund day-day-day spending. However, Mr James believes that borrowing to fix the waiting list crisis would do far greater good than harm. He said that SpaMedica's role in providing eye services for the NHS should be a blueprint for ministers to work from, as the company claims to have helped cut waiting times for cataract surgery from 18 months to two weeks since Covid. It now provides around 70pc of eye care referrals from the NHS, and last year helped to restore the sight of around 200,000 patients. Profiteering claims While it has helped to cut waiting times, SpaMedica is one of many private cataract clinics facing claims of profiteering after they allegedly inflated costs for procedures. A leaked document from the Health Department, first reported by The Sunday Times, alleged that SpaMedica classed its patients as 'higher complexity', which led to procedures being more expensive than they needed to be. Campaigners point to the fact that SpaMedica's profits rose from £63.9m to £71.8m in its last financial year, which they say is proof of the company taking the taxpayer for a ride. SpaMedica has denied any wrongdoing. However, such allegations reflect the fierce debate surrounding privatisation of the NHS, with many households uncomfortable with the prospect of independent providers making a profit while providing medical services, even if they are free for patients. Mr James, who ran Boots from 2018 to 2024, is adamant that ministers must ignore such complaints if they are to have any hope of reducing waiting lists. 'We have cut waiting times down from 18 months to two to three weeks,' said Mr James. 'We have eaten away our waiting list.' This is particularly key for Sir Keir Starmer, who has pledged that 92pc of NHS patients will get an appointment within 18 weeks by the end of the current parliament in 2029. Ultimately, Mr James argues that private healthcare must be embraced because it is far more efficient than the NHS. He said that SpaMedica clinics carry out more than 20 cataract surgeries a day, which is almost double that of NHS hospitals. The fees are also cheaper, he said, as each cataract operation costs SpaMedica £980, compared to around £1,400 on the NHS. 'We've shown that we can do it in our industry, but we need to broaden it out,' he said. 'We could take it area by area, whether that be knee replacements or treating melanomas. 'By working with private healthcare providers, the solution is to save the NHS money. 'We understand people's hesitation, but we want to see what's best for the patient. We're not talking about eradicating the NHS, it's about a partnership.'
